In a painstaking process this alternate history storyline has been researched and is presented for your entertainment.
By using historical documents from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff we know exactly what the contingency plans were in the case of an expected Soviet attack in 1946.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

One Lucky SOB

Henry “Hank” Gardner heard someone swearing but it sounded like he was muffled. It turned out to be him. He kept shouting “what the fuck” over and over again. That is until he woke up and he knew he was in deep trouble. He was swinging from a USAAF parachute with some kind of mask on him and a small heavy bottle hitting him in the nuts.

He was having trouble making his left side work, anything on his left side, arm, leg, eye or even his hearing. It’s surprisingly hard to function with only one eye. Your perception is all screwed up initially.

As he took stock he started to remember how he got here. He was aboard a bomber one of those big ones…and there was an explosion and…someone pushed him out of the plane! Holy crap was he scared. He was a chicken shit anyway and had figured out a way to strap a portable emergency oxygen system to his body and it was now saving his life and hitting him in the aforementioned nuts.

He was a scientist, what the hell was he being pushed out of a plane for! As the events of what he figured was the last 5 minutes came back to him he suddenly realized he could not remember his own name! He did remember seeing a piece of metal blowing around with a name on it kind of following him as he fell. The damn thing hit him just as he pulled the ring that was supposed to make the chute work. I guess it worked because here I am. Was his name Finnegan? No, that was the name painted on the piece of metal that hit him. Until he can think more clearly, Finnegan it is. I must have hit my head.

Well… I’m over land and not water. Let’s see we were on our way to Grozny to do some kind of experiment. Something to do with a high altitude wind…
His right ear catches a droning noise and as he scans around he catches sight of another giant silver bomber flying a few thousand feet off to the right almost overhead. Shit it’s bomb bay door is open. I thought they had multiple doors? Now that is a bomb! Look at the size of the thing will yah. Amazing and there it goes… Someone is in for a world of hurt that thing is huge. Wait…wait oh God no! It’s a numerical…nucleotide…asthma…some kind of bad bomb and it’s going to kill me as well. What the hell do I do? Curl up in a ball! Can you steer this parachute? I know I’ll just cut the harness and drop and take my chances.

He starts fishing for a knife with his right arm and hand all the time watching the bomb fall through the air. It fascinates him the way it cuts through the air. That’s what I was supposed to study! How this thing fell through the air and what happens when it hits some kind of wind.

Just then the said wind hit him. He felt it first as his feet and legs were pulled sideways and then he was almost pulled out of his harness and swept sideways at an incredible speed away from the path of the monstrous bomb. He had no idea how fast he was going but he was flying behind his chute like a toy gone berserk. He kept going for what seemed like forever when behind him he sensed an incredibly bright light rather than saw it. It lit up his parachute and then a few seconds later a pressure wave hit along with a searing hot wind faster than the wind he was being carried by. This whole combination of fast moving air increased his speed tremendously but since he was traveling at essential the same speed as the first wind it didn’t tear him or the parachute into shreds.

He went on like this for quite a while when all of all of a sudden he fell far enough towards the ground that he dropped out of the fast moving wind and then was sent in the other direction by a fairly quick wind. Down and down he fell all the time trying to remember his real name and his family…if he had one, anyone on the plane…anything that he could grab a hold of. Every once in a while he would swing around and wonder at the ever expanding mushroom cloud. Something about “I am the destroyer of worlds” kept repeating itself in his head. It looked like he was going to land in the foothills of the mountains that were now above him. Looking down on him like he was some kind of bug that had briefly visited their lofty world and now was back where he belonged.

He kept feeling weaker and weaker. Probably bleeding to death, he thought. No it’s the air bottle, it’s empty. Well not a bad way to go he thought. Finally he just couldn’t fight it anymore and fainted.

The next thing he knew he was alone with a foul smelling pile of blankets and hides on top of him. Someone was with him, lying next to him and holding her hand over his mouth. He heard strange, guttural, male voices, obviously shouting orders. He decided to play along and wait to see what the hell was going on. If they were going to kill him they would have done so when he was out. After about 20 minutes of going in and out of consciousness the pile of blankets and furs where lifted off him and he stared into the most beautiful set of eyes he had ever seen. They were blue green with a slight tilt, almond shaped and so clear you could see your soul in them.